DPLM Faculty Profiles — Dr. Nickeleit

Volker Nickeleit, MD

Professor

Director of the Division of Nephropathology

Director of the Nephropathology Training Program

Office: 919-966-2421

Research Interests

Our laboratory specializes in the diagnostic and scientific evaluation of kidney diseases (also see J. Charles Jennette, MD). My major interest centers around different aspects of renal allograft pathology and I closely collaborate with other investigators in Switzerland and Italy. One area of my investigations focuses on adjunct markers for the diagnosis of graft rejection in order to better define rejection and minimal threshold levels for the diagnosis of rejection. Over the last few years, we have established a non-human primate model of vascular kidney transplant rejection (i.e. transplant endarteritis). This is an important step since rejection in primates closely mimics changes seen in humans, and vascular rejection is the number one graft killer of kidney and heart transplants. Our next goal is to systematically define cellular responses leading from early intimal inflammation to late intimal scarring. These studies require various immunhistochemical and molecular biological techniques including FISH analyses with primate specific probes. In the past, we defined a new disease entity affecting renal allografts, BK-Virus nephropathy, and introduced surrogate markers into clinical pratice for improved patient management. Future studies will focus on better identifying risk factors for developing BK-virus nephropathy.